Elaine Cunningham - The Best of the Realms, Book I

Upon that urgent revelation, Petra gasped, and Jeremywas gone.

Alerted and assembled in the next moments, the childrenfollowed Petra to the stair. It was a long and curving stairway that led to thehigh tower where Sir Paramore had chosen to bed. The steps were dark, litmainly by a faint glow of starlight through occasional arrow loops in the wall.But when Petra and her child warriors began to climb, they saw ahead of themthe vague, flickering illumination of a candle.

"Quiet now," whispered she.

Bannin, a brown-haired boy half her age, nodded seriouslyand slipped his small hand into hers. The twins Liesle and Ranwen smiled ateach other with nervous excitement. Meanwhile, Parri, Mab, Kara, and the others clustered atthe rear of the pack and set hands on their knives.

"That's got to be the candle of LordFerris," Petra mouthed, indicating the light. "We've got to be quiet,or he'll know we're coming."

The children nodded, for they adored Petra as much as Jeremy had when he lived. And they followed her, doing their very best to besilent and stealthy, though children have a different sense of that than doadults. They proceeded on tiptoes, fingertips dragging dully across the curvedinner wall, childish lips whispering loud speculations. As they climbed, thelight grew brighter, their fear welled higher, and their voices became froggyfrom the tension of it all.

With all that muttering, it was no wonder they camearound one of the cold stone curves of the stair to find the narrow, black,long-legged Lord Ferris poised above them, his wiry body stretched weblikeacross the tight passage.

"What are you children doing here?" he askedin an ebon voice that sent a cold draft down the stairs and past the children.

The brave-hearted crew started at that rude welcome,but did not dart.

Petra, who alone hadn'tflinched, said stonily, "What are you doing?"

The man's eyes flashed at that, and his gloved handfell to the pitch-handled dagger at his side.

"Go," he said.

The group wavered, some in the rear involuntarilydrawing back a step. But Petra did something incredible. With the catlike speedand litheness of young girls, she slipped past the black-cloaked man and hisknife. She stood then, barring the stairs above him.

"We stay. You go," she stated simply.

Lord Ferris's lip curled into a snarl. His handgripped her shoulder and brusquely propelled her back down the stairs. Herfooting failed on the damp stone, one leg twisting unnaturally beneath her.Then came a crack like the splintering of green wood, and a small cry. Shecrumpled to the stone-edged steps and tumbled limply down to thechildren, fetching up at their feet and hardly breathing.

They paused in shock. Young Bannin bent, alreadyweeping, beside her. The others took one look at her misshapen leg and rushedin a fierce pack toward the lord. Their young voices produced a pure shriekthat adults cannot create, and they swarmed the black-cloaked nobleman, whofumbled to escape them.

They drove their fathers' knives into the man'sthighs. He toppled forward onto them and made but a weak attack in return,punching red-headed Mab between her pigtails and, with a flailing knee,striking the neck of Karn, too. The first two casualties of battle felllifeless beneath the crush, and the steps under them all were suddenly slickwith blood.

As though their previous earnestness had been feigned,the children fought with berserker rage. They furiously pummeled and stabbedthe man who lay atop them, the once-bold Ferris bellowing and pleadingpiteously. At one point in the brawl, Parri dropped down to take the crimsondagger from Mab's cold hand, then sunk it repeatedly into the back of thenobleman.

Yet Lord Ferris clung tenaciously to life. His elbowswept back and cracked Liesel's head against the stone wall, and she fell in aheap. Next to go was her twin, Ranwen, who seemed to feel Liesel's death inkindred flesh and stood stock-still as the man's fallen candle set her ablaze.Ranwen, too, was unmade by a clumsy kick.

Aside from the bodies that clogged the path and madeit treacherous with blood, Lord Ferris had only poor Parri and two others tobattle. His weight alone proved his greatest weapon, for the next children wentdown beneath him, not to rise again. That left only bawling Bannin and broken Petra below, neither able to fight.

The man in black found footing amidst the twistedlimbs of the fallen, then descended slowly toward Bannin and Petra.

"Put the knives away," said he, sputterscoming from his punctured lungs.

The boy-child-young, eyes clouded with blood, ears ringingwith screams-drew fearfully back a few paces. Petra could not retreat.

"I told you to go, you little fiends!" growled Lord Ferris. Red tears streaked his battered face. "Look whatyou've done!"

Bannin withdrew farther, his whimpering giving way tofull-scale sobs. But Petra, with a monumental effort, rose. The desperatecracking of her leg did not deter her lunge.

Through bloodied teeth, she hissed, "Death toevil," and drove Parri's blade into the nobleman's gut.

Only then did Sir Paramore come rushing down thestairs, just in time to see wicked Lord Ferris tumble stiffly past a triumphant Petra. She smiled at him from within a sea of scarlet child's-blood, thencollapsed dead to the floor.

The death of the child in the story coincided oddlywith the death of the fire on the hearth; the stormy night had reached itsdarkest corner. But the rapt crowd of listeners, who sat mesmerized in thestoryteller's deepening shadow, did not even notice the cold and dim aroundthem. Horace, in the now-frigid kitchen, did.

It was Horace, then, who had to trudge out in the snowfor more wood. He wondered briefly why none of the patrons had complained ofthe chill and dim in the taproom, as they had tirelessly done in days andyears past. As soon as the question formed in his mind, the answer struck him: The stranger's story had kindled a hotter, brighter fire this evening, and byit the people were warming themselves.

Aside from lying slurs on King Caen, Dorsoom, and LordFerris-dead now? Horace wondered, fearing that much of the story might betrue-no crime had yet been committed by the stranger, not even a stolen bit ofbread or blood soup. And his story kept the patrons there when Horace wouldhave thought folks would flee to their lofted beds. But something was not rightabout the stranger. The hairs on the back of Horace's neck, perhaps imbued bythe naturalmagic of apron yokes and years of honest sweat and aches, had stood on end themoment the man had entered with his swirling halo of snow. As the darknessdeepened, as Horace heard snatches of the wicked tale that held the others inthrall, his uneasy feeling had grown to wary conviction. The man was not merelya slick deceiver. He was evil.

Despite that certainty, despite the outcry of everysinew of his being, Horace knew he didn't dare throw the man out or he wouldhave a wall-busting brawl on his hands. Even so, as he bundled wood into thechafed and accustomed flesh of his inner arm, he lifted the icy axe that leanedagainst the woodpile and bore it indoors with him.

In the taproom beyond, the stranger was bringing histale to its inevitable end….

There was much that followed the cruel slaying of theinnocent children: Sir Paramore's shock at the assassination attempt, theshrieks of parents whose children were gone for good, the trembling praise ofthe king for the deeds of the fallen, the empty pallets hauled precariously upthe curving stair, the filled pallets borne down on parents' backs, thebrigade of buckets cleansing the tower, the stationing of guards to protect theprincess's betrothed…

And after it all, Sir Paramore prayed long to the mischievousand chaotic heavens, to Beshaba and Cyric and Loviatar, seeking some planbehind the horrific affair. When his shaken mind grew too weary to sustain itsdevotion and his knees trembled too greatly beneath him to remain upright, SirParamore hung the spell-slaying Kneuma on his bedpost and crawled into hissheets to vainly seek sleep.